Note 245 — Chapter XVI · ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY TENDENCIES—LOVE ASPECTS

It is not perhaps quite easy to see what can be the psychic mechanism in virtue of which men should be attracted to blood relations strictly as such, though to the present writer it would seem to be a possibility which should not be entirely lost sight of. Such a tendency may perhaps have arisen: (1) as the result of some vague and unconscious sense of affinity, similarity or harmony, based perhaps on an unconscious memory impression of pre-natal life (in the case of child and mother or of twins), or upon some other condition of a psychical, physiological or chemical order; (2) at a higher level through the action of perceived physical or psychical resemblance, these in turn playing on the Narcissistic components of the love impulse.